Steven Sexton: UC giving away the farm to Occupiers

Occupy activist encampment is shown on the University of California agricultural research land in Albany, Calif., Monday, May 7, 2012. About 200 Occupy activists broke locks and set up an encampment in April on the 10-acre property. They planted carrot, broccoli and corn seedlings on part of the land to protest planned housing and commercial development nearby.ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

In their continued indulgence of a band of scofflaws occupying university property, administrators at the University of California and its flagship Berkeley campus have done little to bolster taxpayers' faith in the public university that is besieged by budget shortfalls. Instead, they offer but the latest demonstration of the excesses and moral relativism that all too often characterize today's academe and breach the public's trust.

For more than two weeks, a group of about 30 Occupy protesters has trespassed at a Berkeley-owned research farm in nearby Albany, impeding scientific research. But rather than protecting its research mission, enforcing campus rules against encampments and exercising its property rights by expelling the protesters from the land, campus administrators have proposed ceding a portion of it to a community farm if only they move out.

The administrators' approach is consistent with proposed rules of engagement for campus protests that emphasize dialogue over the use of force in order to diffuse confrontations. Following clashes with Occupy protesters at the UC Davis and Berkeley campuses last year, the rules effectively disarm campus administrators and police, leaving them with little choice but to compromise with lawbreakers. In unilaterally disarming, the university is giving away the farm – literally.

Civil disobedience has traditionally imposed upon the protester some risk of arrest and prosecution for lawbreaking. Such risk limited the occasion of civil disobedience to instances in which individual interests were especially aggrieved. And the recognition of such risk is why civil disobedience captures our attention more than other forms of expression.

Increasingly on the college campus, however, civil disobedience comes without risk to the protester because of the deference of university officials to free expression over the rule of law. At least 11 of the 13 protesters facing criminal charges stemming from a Nov. 9 "Occupy Cal" demonstration have had their charges dismissed by the district attorney at the urging of Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. Similarly, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi succeeded in persuading prosecutors to drop charges against all ten protesters arrested during a Nov. 18 Occupy event at her campus.

Earlier this year, a 48-hour occupation of the Anthropology library at Berkeley ended without arrest only after campus officials agreed to protesters' demands that reductions in library hours be reversed. Berkeley Provost George Breslauer said he was "pleased by the successful and nonconfrontational resolution of the protest."

And not long ago, the Berkeley campus endured a nearly two-year occupation of trees the university had targeted for removal to make room for an athletic facility. The university racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to secure the protest site even after a court authorized the removal of protesters encamped high in the trees. Instead of removing the protesters who hurled human feces at them, campus police became the protesters' guardians, providing bottled water, energy bars and military rations.

A campus-imposed deadline for the occupiers to vacate the Berkeley research farm passed this week with the Occupiers still ensconced and stipulating a set of preconditions to their retreat, including the right to continue to farm on the land. It is as if they sense the cost-benefit calculus of protest shifting even more in their favor as the university proposes to abandon its focus on "the maintenance of order and adherence to rules and regulations" in order to "facilitate" free expression, which is deemed "essential to the mission of our University."

One might hope that the protection of scholarly research and instruction by a world-class faculty would also be deemed essential to the mission of the university and even the paramount concern of administrators. At a campus with a storied and recent history of protesters taking over buildings and disrupting classes, the ongoing occupation of what is essentially a campus research laboratory in Albany is troubling. California taxpayers and the world's brightest students are unlikely to continue to pay for a university administered by the Occupy movement that is foremost the guarantor of a soapbox to a protest class that increasingly has little to lose and a lot to gain, including valuable land.

WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Letters to the Editor: E-mail to letters@ocregister.com.
Please provide your name, city and telephone number (telephone numbers will not be published).
Letters of about 200 words or videos of 30-seconds
each will be given preference. Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity.

Occupy activist encampment is shown on the University of California agricultural research land in Albany, Calif., Monday, May 7, 2012. About 200 Occupy activists broke locks and set up an encampment in April on the 10-acre property. They planted carrot, broccoli and corn seedlings on part of the land to protest planned housing and commercial development nearby. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
Occupy activist built this Basil Seed Library to help grow seeds on the University of California agricultural research land in Albany, Calif., Monday, May 7. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
Occupy activist Rachel Yukimura makes a vegetable meal on the University of California agricultural research land in Albany, Calif., Monday, May 7. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
Occupy activist Ingrid Pollyak pours water on a plant on the University of California agricultural research land in Albany, Calif., Monday, May 7. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO
An Occupy activist walks to a Lady Bug Patch on the University of California agricultural research land in Albany, Calif., Monday, May 7. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

1 of

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.